Arguably is a collection of essays by Christopher Hitchens. Each thread in this book discussion forum is named after the title of one of the essays in Arguably. The page number where the essay starts is included in the thread title to make finding it within the book easy.

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eh, I guess I was waiting for RT to kick things off but it doesn't look like he cares to comment. I don't really have anything to say about this article other than the age thing got me wondering. I started to wonder not only about how young is too young but that there isn't a law on how old someone is to keep you from having sex with them.

I think it's far more disgusting to have sex with a 90 year old than a 15 year old, isn't it? Maybe it's just me. Why aren't there laws against having sex with such old people? Aren't they probably not really all there in the head anymore? What if they were rich? We have moral laws against prostitution... what would stop us from making moral laws concerning old people having sex with people, say, 40 years their junior? With all the pills out there and with people living longer, I think this is a concern we should all have.

I think it's far more disgusting to have sex with a 90 year old than a 15 year old, isn't it?

This is precisely why we don't need any laws against it. Also, who would it bother anyway?

Your comments about age got me thinking about the book I just finished, Emma by Jane Austen. A far cry from Lolita, but when George Knightly professes his love for Emma and admits to probably being in love with her since she was 13, which would have made him around 29 or 30 at the time, I felt it a little creepy. In this book, I believe this is supposed to prove the depths of his love, the endurance of it, but for this day and age, and in our culture of today it is looked on differently. A 29 year man hanging around a 13 year old waiting for her to be old enough for him to marry?

It is interesting because a 13 year old girl can physically developed and look not much different than a 19 year old, or she could still look quite child like. I think what is so disgusting about Lolita is the fact that Lolita, who is younger than 13, is very much still a child, not a woman at all, that much is very clear, and so the sexual attraction seems very perverted. I found it quite disturbing when I read it the first time and did not think I'd ever want to read it again. Hitchens comments about seeing something different with each reading did make me have second thoughts about this.

I have also read Reading Lolita in Tehran, but at the time of reading it, I had not yet read Lolita. (It was, in fact, what led me to reading Lolita.) I can see that growing up in culture that regularly married off very young girls to older men and a culture where women were used to having very little power would have quite a different view of the book.

Exactly. I totally agree... culture. The ancient Greeks practiced pederasty which is waaaaay more disgusting than having heterosexual sex with a minor as far as I'm concerned. The Persians did this, too. Alexander the Great had a boy which, if I recall, was made a present to him. This man's name was Bagoas and he was a Eunuch. Remember this practice??? Only by historical reference, right? You've never actually heard of this in modern times. These boys were castrated and made to be catamites. My spell correct doesn't even recognize that word. They did this to try and keep their effeminacy. You should read some of the texts concerning this. I'll not go into it here and that says a lot if you know me. I've read some pretty disturbing things in my little journey through history but it's opened my eyes to "culture". Even more so, despite all the overwhelming evidence... and I mean graphic detail by ancient historians... modern historians still want to believe that the actual physical relationship probably didn't occur. Again, 'culture'.

Getting married to and having heterosexual intercourse with underage minors is nothing new. That's not to say it isn't 'wrong', though. We're a society which likes to cite past precedent as legitimate behavior carte blanche... as in 'our Founding Fathers'. This is a good example where this system fails us (as in slavery, or women's suffrage (who allowed them to vote, really, c'mon!!!))

This type of intercourse is solely about domination, control, and self gratification at the physical and psychological expense of the minor. Geez, I wish I could accurately remember the author but there was a man in who knows when B.C. that was killed by his boy for asking, "aren't you pregnant yet?".

I'd hate to go into it further because this is a touchy subject with me. I'm usually ok with discussing pretty much everything and I do try to explore all angles of an argument but this just feels very wrong. I think minors should be held sacred. If they want to experiment with each other then fine, whatever. I don't think adults should be allowed to touch them and if any person in any authoritative position touches them (parent, uncle, teacher, congressman) there should be a trial in which their life would hang on the decision of a jury.

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